


Better

by Taskir



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, flagrant Latin abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 10:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taskir/pseuds/Taskir
Summary: Originally written 2007.





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 2007.

It is always possible to be better.

Why should you waste time and effort fixing what is broken? What is broken is the part you should cherish. Removed, and placed with other 'broken' parts in the correct configuration, you often can create something far superior. Something greater than the sum of its parts.

It is always possible to be better.

 

Oh, Eden. I could have done so much for you, don't you understand?

I can still see it.

The piece of you that was crippled. The piece that was necessary. The piece that would have saved us both.

It was so close, tantalizing and ready to be plucked, it was almost mine -- and then there was nothing left. Nothing but streams of blood stippled with flecks of matter and bone, tiny and fragile as eggshells. 

I could have repaired it so easily, saved you so much pain -- they are all in pain, even those who don't realize it. I could have mended you, fixed you. But instead the piece is useless, now, lying on the ground somewhere amid the shattered glass.

 

It's best to remove the broken section swiftly. The suffering, the fear, the knowledge of death, it floods into the brain and clogs what I need, muddying what is most pure.

It isn't all bad, of course. The fear helps the taste.

 

Sometimes they can be so loud.

The slightest tick, too fast or too slow, skipping beats or doubling them, can reveal so very much. A spring, a cog, a wheel -- they all have their language. It's a matter of distilling, of deciding what is most important.

Sometimes, what is damaged is so clear, it almost beckons. Begs to be put right, for someone to make everything work properly once more.

The girl, the one who remembered everything -- she was like that. Already so broken, already dying by slow degrees inside, I could hear her from miles away. Her suffering was like a throb, like a secondhand stuck and sluggish.

She's happier now, this way. Happier to be part of something so important. She's told me so.

 

There have been mistakes. But every mistake is a chance to improve.

There are always errors, false starts, oversights. The first Vacheron Constantin took planning.

 

I was sloppy, and careless in the beginning. I will admit that. I was too eager, too greedy. I've learned patience since. Learned how to observe, to take what I want when the time is right, and not a moment before.

I didn't have the right tools the first time. I had to bludgeon him, like a crude animal, and peel flesh from bone with my own fingers. Had to listen to him whimpering for minutes. Endless minutes of him twitching and bleeding, and all the while what was vital inside him retreating, slowing, becoming almost useless by the time I retrieved it.

It was worth it. He was free from his pain, and in death, restored. Mended. Better.

 

The one in Chicago. He was a problem.

He could access emotions, and use them to pull up entire memories as if they happened the day before.

I was too close to that bitch Hanson, sticking around to admire my work like some super-villain in a comic book. I still had something to prove, then.

When she shot the man she thought was me, I felt her guilt. I felt her shame, the thick bile taste of it in her throat. Then he made it mine.

 

In New York, my father was waiting for me.

No, not my father. Suresh. My other father.

“You're ill, Gabriel --

_I don‘t understand you, Gabriel--_

If you won't let me help you --

_you're an average watchmaker._

then I have to go to the authorities. I have to stop you."

_Stop wanting so much. You're nothing special._

 

Liars. Jealous of what I'm becoming.

Both of them, in my head now. The crash of gears, metal on metal, grinding, scraping, squealing. They were mocking me, taunting me, attempting to shame me.

For what? For trying to be better? For following the path they’d set me on?

Had to silence him -- them -- him. There was nothing broken in him, but I tried to take what was there, all the same. I tried to remove what wasn't damaged. What didn't need fixing. 

And I paid. 

Inside me, they were louder. Howling in my ears. Burning accusation in my veins.

_Confiteor Deo omnipotenti,_  
_beatæ Mariæ semper Virgini,_  
_beato Michæli Archangelo,_

So I cut. Cut him -- them -- him out of me.

_beato Ioanni Baptistæ,_  
_sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo,_  
_omnibus Sanctis, et vobis, fratres (et tibi pater),_

And I bled out my penance.

_quia peccavi_  
_nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere:_  
_mea culpa,_  
_mea culpa,_  
_mea maxima culpa._

Mind fuzzy, stomach sick. And blood -- the blood was everywhere, sticky and scarlet. I'd never noticed before how beautiful it was.

_Ideo precor beatam Mariam_  
_semper Virginem,_  
_beatum Michælem Archangelum,_  
_beatum Ioannem Baptistam,_

But I went on, purged him, took what was in me that was his and painted it on the wall, over and over and over again, until the world was black and my arms numb and the bathroom floor slick.

_sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,_  
_omnes Sanctos, et vos, fratres (et te, pater),_

So much blood. So much blood on my hands.

_orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum._

Until he was gone.

 

Under the tranquilizer, for the first time in months, I dream.

Suresh is showing me the list, the connections. Each one rhythmically different, some a beat behind, others ahead. A cacophony, and it is loud, and wrong, and --

He waves his hand, and it stops. Pauses. Then starts again, all coordinated, smooth, and regulated.

"I was wrong, and I am sorry. You are very special, Sylar. Very special indeed.

You know how to mend what's been broken.

And one day, you're going to fix everything. Everything.

You can tell how imperfect it is already. It's yours to correct. 

Better is always possible."

 

_Amen._


End file.
